My one resolution for 2016

04Jan

For 2016 I will be developing a habit of reading 6 pages of a technical software development book every single day. 6 pages might not seem like a lot, but I want something that’s a realistic goal and easily measurable, and when you do the maths 2,196 pages is quite a few books. I’m only counting pages of content as pages read, so a new chapter title and humorous image won’t count towards my daily goal. Nor will I spend several days leisurely reading the contents and index of each book. My plan is to develop this into a lifelong habit that I’ll continue doing far beyond 2016, but for now I’ll just stick to my daily target until

I’m going to mostly focus on books that are language agnostic, books like Code Complete, and The Mythical Man Month rather than Teach Yourself Objectives in 21 days. I may change my mind for a couple of stand out books such as Jon Skeet’s C# in Depth, but for the most part I’m not short on choices. Right now my list consists of The Mythical Man Month, The Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Coder, and Code Complete (which I’ve been slowly reading for a few years, but never finished). After I’m finished with those I’ve got a pretty good list to choose from, and it’s only going to grow as the year goes on.

I considered making a professional software development blog and doing regular posts as part of this too, but then I realised I’d be breaking my original rule of only doing one resolution. I will still make a blog but it won’t be my primary focus.